The present invention relates to apparatuses useful for cleaning and refreshing fabrics in a non-immersion cleaning process, which comprise an ultrasonic nebulizer for dispensing of a cleaning and refreshing composition, and to an improved nebulizer.
Certain delicate fabrics are not suitable for conventional in-home immersion cleaning processes. Home washing machines, which provide excellent cleaning results for the majority of fabrics used in today""s society, can, under certain conditions, shrink or otherwise damage silk, linen, wool and other delicate fabrics. Consumers typically have their delicate fabric items xe2x80x9cdry-cleanedxe2x80x9d. Unfortunately, dry-cleaning usually involves immersing the fabrics in various hydrocarbon and halocarbon solvents that require special handling and the solvent must be reclaimed, making the process unsuitable for in-home use. Hence, dry-cleaning has traditionally been restricted to commercial establishments making it less convenient and more costly than in-home laundering processes.
Attempts have been made to provide in-home dry-cleaning systems that combine the fabric cleaning and refreshing of in-home, immersion laundering processes with the fabric care benefits of dry-cleaning processes. One such in-home system for cleaning and refreshing garments comprises a substrate sheet containing various liquid or gelled cleaning agents, and a plastic bag. The garments are placed in the bag together with the sheet, and then tumbled in a conventional clothes dryer. In a current commercial embodiment, multiple single-use flat sheets comprising a cleaning/refreshing agent and a single multi-use plastic bag are provided in a package.
Unfortunately, such in-home processes are designed for use in a conventional clothes dryer, or the like apparatus. Such apparatuses are not always readily available, and they are often uneconomical. Moreover, in many countries clothes dryers are simply unnecessary. For example, in many warm tropical regions people do not typically own clothes dryers because their clothes can be dried year-round by hanging them outside in the sun. In the areas of the world where people do not typically own clothes dryers, products that require a heating apparatus, such as a clothes dryer, are of little or no value.
Steamer cabinets have also been utilized in the past to treat fabric articles with heavy doses of steam. Unfortunately, past steam cabinets were largely uncontrolled with respect to temperature and humidity. The cabinets were generally large appliances that were not portable. And due to the large amount of steam used, a drying step is often required that puts strain on the fabrics. The drying step also requires additional time and energy, and often results in undesirable shrinkage.
Thus, there was a need to develop a domestic, non-immersion cleaning and refreshing process, and cleaning and refreshing compositions for use therein, which provides acceptable cleaning without the need for a tumble dryer. Moreover, there is a need for apparatuses that can regulate both temperature and relative humidity within a container during a domestic, non-immersion cleaning and refreshment process, wherein dry clean only fabrics are cleaned, de-wrinkled and refreshed.
Thus, apparatuses were developed for treating a fabric article which include a collapsible or expandable container that is made from a material that defines an interior void space having an open volume, and an opening. Such known apparatuses also include a humidity provider; a heating element; a hangar for suspending at least one fabric article within the interior void space of the container; a vent; and an air circulation device. The container can be collapsed so that the apparatus is portable. The heating element that is used in such known apparatuses is typically a steaming unit or equivalent which volatilizes the refreshing and cleaning composition by heating it up to its volatilizing temperature.
However, it appears that such steaming units are limited only to use with refreshing and cleaning compositions which contain volatile compounds. Thus, nowadays, the only way to deliver non-volatile compounds to a fabric article to be treated in such apparatuses is to use a hand spray (or the like, for example aerosol cans . . . etc.) before actually closing the apparatus for a refreshing and cleaning cycle. Such an operation is fastidious for the user, and moreover, it does not provide an homogeneous coverage of the garments with the non-volatile composition (preferably, only the visibly soiled wrinkled areas are covered by the user).
Thus, there is a need for an automatic portable apparatus for treating a fabric article, as previously described that comprises means to deliver, in an homogeneous way, non-volatile as well as volatile compounds onto the fabric article to be treated.
The present invention is firstly directed to an apparatus for treating a fabric article which includes a collapsible or expandable container that is made from a material that defines an interior void space having an open volume of between about 0.75 m3 and about 0.05 m3, and an opening. The apparatus also includes a humidity provider which is achieved by an ultrasonic nebulizer element for dispersing the refreshing and cleaning composition onto the fabric article; a hangar for suspending at least one fabric article within the interior void space of the container; a vent; a heating element for controlling the temperature inside said void space of said apparatus; and an air circulation device. The container can be collapsed to at least about 50%, preferably at least about 40%, and more preferably at least about 25% of its open volume.
One other aspect of the present invention is directed to an ultrasonic nebulizer for use in a portable and collapsible cleaning and refreshing apparatus for treating fabric garments. Said ultrasonic nebulizer comprises a housing, said housing being divided into at least two compartments by a membrane, preferably made out of a flexible film, more preferably made out of an inox film, such that at least one compartment is liquid and vapor tight, said nebulizer further comprising at least one piezoelectric vibrator for ultrasonic wave generation and located in said liquid and vapor tight compartment, a high-frequency generator for exciting said piezoelectric vibrator, wherein said liquid or gel medium is heated by a built-in heating means to a temperature of at least 30xc2x0 C., preferably at least 40xc2x0 C., more preferably at least 50xc2x0 C.